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Hi I am curious to know how many master builders there have been since the custom shop was set up and those who have left wonder what they are doing now any names from the past that have gone of and done there own thing . a history lesson hear I think chris

A few faces in the crowd... Abigail Ybarra, John Page, Mark Kendrick, Larry Brooks, John English, John Cruz, Todd Krause (WITH MAJOR BIG HAIR!! hehe), Greg Fessler, JW Black, Gene Baker, Art Esparza ... to name but a few that I personally have heard of :-)

Art Esparza has been on disability with major knee surgery and has been just giggin' with his sax.

Yasuhiko Iwanade is the head of Internationl Sales for Gibson in Japan.

And I think John English is just taking some time off for awhile. Sometimes we all have to do that to re-group before we start another chapter... like all of who left did.

I think I can speak for all of us in the above list, and say that our years at Fender were a wonderful chapter in our lives, but there is life after Fender. Being Fender Custom Shop Master Builders is what we did... not who we were, or are. That gets lost sometimes.

"Yasuhiko Iwanade is the head of Internationl Sales for Gibson in Japan." John Page

Ah, now we know why the Galaxy of Strats hasn't been in print since '98. John, would you care to share any insights or memories of Yasuhiko Iwanade? I'll wager that Japanese collectors were keen to get their hands on his Master Built guitars.

Edit:

Incidentally, I converted my old tape of Curves Contours and Body Horns to a digital format. So it looks like the interview that you did back in '94 will live on forever. ;-)

Yas made some guitars under a brand name which I forget for a little while.

Is Hector Montes still with Fender? I guess he wasn't a master builder but why did he get to put his name on necks? How senior of a builder to you have to be in order to be able to put our name on a guitar?

Yes...Kenny Gin was a Masterbuilder for Fender and left the company and went to Suhr Guitars back in around 97 or 98. I have the orange Masterbuilt Strat thats been around ,that was owned by the lead guitarist of Sponge ...94/96 era
Thanx alorenger@aol.com

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